Thomson's Grass Valley Products Win Seven Industry Awards at NAB 2007 Expertise and Proven Technology to Henry Stewart DAM Conferences in New York and London
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Paris, France/Nevada City, Calif., May 30th, 2007 - Further strengthening its lead in critical production applications and HD compression, as well as other areas, several Grass Valley(TM) products from Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) were honored at this year's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, collecting a total of seven industry awards. The awards were presented to the EDIUS(TM) high definition editing application, Mustang MPEG-4 compression chipset, Xensium(TM) CMOS Sensor, LCP 400 Wireless Local Control Panel, new Spirit® HD Datacine, and the new Indigo(TM) AV Mixer.
These awards were received from respected trade publications Broadcast Engineering, TV Technology, Television Broadcast, and Digital Cinematography magazines, as well as Digital Cinema Report, an online publication, and the 4EVER Group, an event videographer trade association. All agreed that the new Grass Valley products introduced at the show this year will have a significant effect on the targeted market segments and make users' workflows more productive and efficient.
o Broadcast Engineering magazine selected both the EDIUS craft editing platform and the Indigo AV Mixer for its list of 2007 Pick Hit Award winners.
Version 4.5 of the EDIUS HD editing software provides mixed format editing, and video output directly from the timeline, all in real time. It also offers a new graphical user interface (GUI) design and a variety of new features, as well as DVD authoring. EDIUS 4.5 is a free upgrade for existing version 4.0 users.
Part of the Grass Valley Professional Line product family aimed at bringing affordable high quality to professional AV, the new Indigo AV Mixer combines video, high-resolution computer images, and audio control in a single, compact unit.
In deciding its Pick Hit Awards, Broadcast Engineering readers and industry professionals working in the field select the most innovative and exciting products shown at the show. The Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit Award is the industry's longest-running new product technology award.
o TV Technology magazine bestowed its coveted STAR award on the Mustang chip, used to power the new range of ViBE HD MPEG-4 AVC encoders.
The result of a three-year development program by Thomson Research, which incorporates Grass Valley technology, the Mustang chip is the world's first professional grade MPEG-4 compression ASIC and is capable of delivering high definition MPEG-4 signals using as little as half the bandwidth of existing encoders. Grass Valley MPEG-4 AVC compression efficiency using Mustang was demonstrated at the NAB convention, with premium quality HD displayed at as little as 4 Mb/s.
The STAR Awards (for Superior Technology Award Recipient) celebrate and showcase pre-eminent technological innovations available to the media industry. A panel of judges consisting of TV Technology editors and columnists reviewed a variety of products and services, examined the technical applications and their overall contribution to the industry, and then submitted their award nominees.
o The Television Broadcast Top Innovation Award for the LCP 400 Wireless Local Control Panel was first nominated by industry professionals and then voted on by the editorial team of the magazine.
The award honors the innovative technical achievement, improved workflow and cost efficiencies that the LCP 400 brings to the industry. The LCP 400 is a wireless controller for the innovative Infinity digital media camcorder. As well as controlling the camera's operational parameters, it also gives the operator access to the metadata stored with the content, allowing the operator to add and modify critical information, speeding the workflow when the recording arrives in the editing suite.
o Digital Cinematography magazine presented its Premiere Product Award to Grass Valley for its development of the Xensium CMOS Sensor, now used as the imager in the Infinity digital media camcorder. The award recognizes innovation and engineering excellence within the film imaging industry.
o Developed by the Grass Valley camera team, the native high definition Xensium sensor uses CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) to achieve a wider dynamic range, lower power consumption and improved signal-to-noise performance when compared to current CCD and CMOS imagers.
o Digital Cinema Report named the Spirit HD Datacine one of only five products and systems that represented "the best post production products at NAB 2007."
The new Spirit HD Datacine scans at all standard and high definition formats, in both 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 colour resolutions. It shares optical and mechanical components with the highly regarded Spirit 2K and Spirit 4K film scanners, allowing the Spirit HD to be upgraded on site with the minimum of downtime as the user's requirements move from HD to digital intermediate post production.
o Finally, the 4EVER Group (formerly a part of the Wedding and Event Videographers Association, WEVA) also recognized the Grass Valley EDIUS system, with one of its 2007 NAB Product Innovation Awards. EDUIS was chosen due to its potential for a significant and positive impact upon the event video industry.
By recognizing those products and services that enable event videographers to better serve their own clients, the 4EVER Group's goal is to help direct more vendor resources to the event video community.
Ross Hignett
Media & Analyst Relations Specialist
The Whiteoaks Consultancy
24 West Street
Farnham
Surrey
GU9 7DR
t +44 (0) 1252 727 313
f +44 (0) 1252 727 314
e rossh@whiteoaks.co.uk
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